The Myth

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The Myth is a Maltese rock band that has been active since 1990.

Dion and Mark met in 1989 when Dion, together with some other friends, was rehearsing for a rock mass. Mark was introduced as the drummer, but in the end, he didn’t play. However, they continued playing and jamming together and the following year, another rock mass was organised. This time, Mark was the drummer. Etienne Farrell and Karen Tanti, two of the choir members, would later form part of the band.

With the rock mass over, Dion and Mark discussed the possibility of forming a band. Two other members joined in, Jason Zammit on the guitar and Adrian Vella on vocals. In September 1990, the band officially started rehearsing. Their first two songs were Children Of The Grave by Black Sabbath and With His Empty Hands by Lenny Kravitz.

But there remained one problem: the band still didn’t have a name. As it happens in most bands in the making, everyone was giving his ideas. The name Machine Head stuck for a while until one day, Dion was talking to an old friend of his, Henry Abela, who suggested that the band should be called The Myth.

Two months after its formation, the new band was asked to perform during the Jesus Festival, an annual event held at St Agatha’s College, and which that year was to be held on the 24th November. For a new band in the very early ‘90’s, the prospect was quite high: nearly one thousand seats were booked, local news papers published their photos and TVM showed part of their performance during the 8 o’ clock news.

The new band was on a high. In fact, they didn’t even mind carrying their equipment to and from the venue by bus, including the guitar amps and parts of the drum kit!

That same year, Dion started writing some original material for the band; the first three being Master Of Death; In The Night, which he wrote and recorded as a demo in 20 minutes, and Cindy.

In 1991, Dion replaced Adrian and became the guitarist and vocalist of the band, while Etienne Farrell, Dion’s sister, replaced Jason on the guitar. Besides playing the guitar, she also was the backing vocalist. Now the band was playing a mixture of original material and cover versions.

In this new formation, the band played for the first time during the Tarxien Youth Centre’s Youthfest, on the 3rd August 1991.

The band’s logo was designed in this same year by Dion. This logo, which was basically a T inside an M, became known as the Symbol Of Power.

1992 was a decisive year. The band decided not to perform live since they felt that some issues had to be settled. On the previous year, Mark was working as a P.E. teacher. One of his students, who was interested in rock music, used to watch the band rehearse in Tarxien. With him he used to take his friend, a certain Paul Micallef. Forward back to 1992, Etienne went to Sixth Form and there she met Paul. Obviously, they started talking about the band and it was here that Paul mentioned that he was learning the bass guitar. Paul was asked to join, and for the first time, the band had a bassist.

Dion composed anything; Blues, Rock ‘n Roll, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and even Ballads. Everyone believed that their original material was good enough so the decision was taken to quit playing cover versions. On the 24th March 1993, the new line up performed at the Live Buzz, which was held at the New Lyceum in Msida. On that same year, the band competed in the Mondo Rock with two songs, namely Midnight and Cryin’. The band was one of the three finalists who’s song was chosen to be aired abroad.

Mark’s cousin, Ian Galea joined the band on keyboards in late 1995. Dion knew Ian from the time he was studying classical music, since they were attending the same class. Joining the band was a tough job, since all the material was not written with the keyboards in mind. However, Ian did his job well, and a new sound was created.

The band was on another high in 1996. They were featured and reviewed in all local news papers and on most tv and radio stations. On the 23rd June 1996, they supported the Eagles Tribute Band at the Rock Café in Paceville.

That same year, Mark quit the band since he took a job in Germany. Seven drummers applied for the audition and finally, the band chose Chris Musu. Chris brought with him new ideas and it was here that the band decided to change its musical style. The intricate drum rolls and long guitar solos were ditched in favour of a quieter, more mature sound. Etienne even wrote two songs for the band; Bruised and Angels.

Ian quit the band in 1997 and the band reverted to its old sound. This time, however, it was decided to add a couple of cover versions to the song list. In this same year, The Myth was invited as a guest band in the Carovana Rock competition.

The following year saw Chris quitting the band. A week later, Mark phoned Dion. Luckily, he had just returned from abroad and he was looking for a band. So he joined again and that same week, after almost two years absent from the band, Mark and his old buddies supported Status Quo in Ta’ Qali.

The band supported Smokie in 1999. This was Paul’s last concert since he had to quit the band due to personal commitments.

If 1990 and 1996 were the band’s highs, than 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 must have been an all time low. Work commitments and further line up changes meant that the band almost did not perform live during these years. However, the weekly rehearsals never ceased and the band managed to secure four gigs in 2002. In 2000, David De Cesare joined the band as a bass guitar player and as a backing vocalist. In 2001, Etienne quit the band and Karen Tanti, Dion’s girlfriend and Mark’s cousin, took her place. One of the gigs in 2002 was during a wedding reception. Nothing unusual here unless you’ll learn that this wedding belonged to Dion and Karen... Another guitarist, Edward Muscat, joined the band in 2003 and for the first time the band had three guitarists. David quit in 2004, but the band continued performing at a number of venues even though it had no bass guitar player.

A new bassist, Patrick Mifsud, joined the band in 2005 and the new line up decided to add even more cover versions to their song list.

In 2006, The Myth participated for the first time in the Battle of the Bands. The band played three original songs and one cover version and on the semi finals, the band scored the highest overall points. On that same year, it was also decided that it was about time that the band should have its official website. After a lot of brain storming between Dion and Patrick, the site began to take shape in November. It took a while to launch the site since it was decided that all the work, including all pictures, photographs and the actual web creation, should be undertaken by the band members themselves. In the meantime, however, the band created three sites: one on Soundclick, one on Hi5 and another one on MySpace.

On that same year, Dion and Patrick also created the band’s official font,
At the beginning of 2007, the band members agreed to take the band to another level. Hence the services of an Agent and P.R. were sought. Joanne Cutajar took the role and within a couple of months she managed to secure live gigs at some of Malta’s top venues.

After almost five months, the band’s official website, www.themyth.org was finally launched on the 30th April 2007. This event was also covered in most local newspapers.

November 2007 was an eventful month for The Myth. On the 10th the band organised the Headbangers Union 2007. The poster was simple but it said it all: five bands, five rock styles, one stage, one really good cause. True to these words, this was a fund raising concert in aid of Razzett tal-Hbiberija where four other bands playing different rock styles were invited to share the stage with The Myth. Incidentally, this was also to be Edward Muscat's last gig with The Myth due to personal commitments. On the 30th of the same month, the band launched its first single, Sworn Independent, which was written eleven years previously.

The band's second single Star, which was launched on the 30th April 2008, was an instant success, with some of Malta's top radio stations even promoting it to the Top 10 charts for several weeks. The song was also being played on Italian radio stations and it was also one of the five finalists in the VH-1 supported contest Song Of The Year for May 2008.

In September 2008 the band went back to the studio, this time to record three songs: How Does It Feel?, Animal and Dreams. The band's first official video was released on the 9th March 2009. Although a budget video, `Animal - the movie' received very good feedback from the public who simply loved the guitar-hero cat.

After the huge success of these three singles, in July 2009 the band went back to the studio to record two new songs - "Thank You" and "Crazy". By the end of the month, the band had already given its 15th live performance for 2009 together with a string of tv appearances, radio plays and news paper features. Then in August came two other major live gigs - The Myth was chosen as a supporting act for the Worlds Official Queen Tribute Band and two days later the band performed in Malta's first edition of the Malta Rock Festival.

In September 2009 The Myth was honored to be approached by the Daniel Pearl Foundation to participate in the Daniel Pearl World Music Days, a global network of concerts promoting unity through the universal language of music and which is led by distinguished artists on the Honorary Committee including Sir Elton John, R.E.M. and Barbra Streisand. Daniel Pearl was the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002, just four months after 9/11. The Myth's concert was held on the 24th October 2009.

A few days later the band gave its website a fresh new look. This was done with the help of local artist Joanne Mizzi who designed the cartoon images on the site's home page.

Nomination for the Best Website Award in the Malta Music Awards (2011)

The band rehearses at their private studio in Tarxien.

Dion Farrell

Dion Farrell was born on the 17th April 1970. He started learning the Spanish guitar at the age of nine, but switched to classical guitar as he approached grade six. He bought his first electric guitar, which he self taught, at the age of seventeen, joined a reggae band and then a rock band. With the grade eight over, he spent almost a year preparing for his diploma in classical music; however, he quit studying altogether and together with Mark Galea formed The Myth.

Although when he was young he sang with a couple of choirs, singing with The Myth happened by accident. The band was looking for a vocalist and while waiting for the post to be filled in, Dion became the `temporary’ singer since he had no experience or vocal training what so ever. However, he persisted and in 2002 he attended a Voices concert and came out so impressed that he decided to audition for the next series of concerts. He auditioned in 2004 for the Voices Xtraordinaire and besides being chosen as a choir member, he was also chosen as a soloist. In 2006 he joined Voices again as a choir member and as a soloist. He joined Voices again in 2008 as a choir member.

Dion writes most of the original material for The Myth. Asked to choose two of his favorite songs, he chooses the music of Wise Men and the lyrics of The Truth. The Anthem is also one of his favourites.

His hobbies are quite numerous: antique furniture, old toys, listening to music, watching movies and he is crazy about anything carrying a Porsche badge.

Role in band: sings, plays the guitar, tambourine and panpipes and composing.

Mark Galea

Mark Galea was born on 5 April 1972. He started drumming in 1989 at the age of 17 on an ancient Napoleonic drum kit. A year later he formed the The Myth together with Dion.

Musical influences vary but his all time favourites are Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth and Rainbow.

Mark is nothing without sport challenges. Over the years Mark has done the Lifecycle four times (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006), formed part of the National Judo team between 1999 and 2001 and even rowed for the new B’ Bugia Regatta team in 2005 where they won the first 'Palju' on the 'Dghajsa tal-Pass' after 30 years.

Role in band: plays the drums and percussions.

Etienne Farrell

Etienne is the only female member of the band. She was brought up listening to a variety of music genres; pop on her mum`s radio, country music on dad`s stereo, and vintage rock music on her brother`s. She took guitar lessons for three years and first joined The Myth in 1991. For the next ten years she was the band`s rhythm guitar player and backing vocalist.

Etienne rejoined the band in 2010.

Patrick John Mifsud

Patrick John Mifsud was born on 29th October 1977, the same day when the album “KISS Alive II” by KISS was released. He was always interested in rock music since he was very young when at the age of eight, his father bought him his very first rock album, “Best of Solo Albums” by KISS, one of his favourite bands until today. Other favourite bands are Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, whose music still forms part of Patrick’s daily playlist.

Thanks to his brother Stanley, a number one KISS fan and a rock guitar player, Patrick grew up listening to rock music and willing to be a bass guitarist in a rock band. However, due to his study commitments, Patrick was not able to learn guitar until the age of 23. On his 23rd birthday, his wife Charlotte (still his fiancée at that time), gave him his first bass guitar for his birthday. This made it possible for Patrick to start self-learning bass guitar and playing to various songs at home.

One day in May 2005, Patrick met Mark (the drummer) at a party given by Mark’s brother, Ivan, who is also Patrick’s best friend. When Mark came to know that Patrick played bass guitar, he asked him to go for a session with The Myth since they were without a bass player at that time. Patrick agreed to give it a try and in June 2005, he went for a rehearsal with The Myth and was quite happy with the friendly approach by the rest of the band members. Since then, he is the bass player for The Myth.